The Winter of Our Discontent
by BloodFromTheThorn
Summary: Why did criminals always think that the best time to make a disturbance was in the middle of winter? Between the snow, Clayface and Scarecrow, Dick's having a really bad day. It really doesn't help that Batman's late. No slash.


Why did criminals always think that the best time to make a disturbance was in the middle of winter? It was well below freezing and Dick was slightly concerned that if he didn't wrap this up quickly then certain parts of his anatomy might actually drop off. Wouldn't that be a fun one to explain to Bruce?

Speaking of, where the hell was the old bastard? Dick had decided long ago that he'd only ever call for Bats when he was absolutely certain he alone would not be enough to keep innocent people safe from the machinations of psychopaths and _of course_ today just had to be one of those days. Everything else was awful, so why not this?

Cursing silently to himself, he twisted out the way of yet another fist before darting in close to throw a shot of his own into the attacker's windpipe. The man dropped like a stone. Low level thugs like these were absolutely no match for someone as well trained as Dick but their sheer numbers were slowing him down more than he would like and somewhere deeper in the industrial district Clayface and Scarecrow were teaming up for something as yet unknown but no doubt nefarious.

Dick twirled one of his eskrima sticks then hurled it into the face of a man trying to sneak around him, while in the same motion rushing another attacker in the opposite direction and bringing him down with a well-placed blow on his temple. The snow beneath his feet shifted, one leg almost sliding out from under him to put him off balance. There was another man in his face instantly, and Dick had neither the time nor the leverage to avoid the uppercut that sent him stumbling backwards, jaw smarting. At least he'd had the sense to get his tongue out the way.

Feeling just a little spiteful, Dick repaid the blow in full and received a satisfying crunch of sound for his troubles. The lack of his escrima stick was only going to slow him down more, he decided while dodging another series of punches from a man twice his size but only half as quick, so he ducked under the flailing arms and dove for it, trying to ignore the snow that managed to find its way through the cracks in the suit to soak into his skin. Sweet Lord it was _freezing._

At least everyone else was just as cold as he was. It was small satisfaction but he'd take what he could get. Another six men were down before Dick felt himself beginning to flag; in any other circumstance he could keep up a fight like this for days if he needed to but the cold had worked its way down to his bones and he'd been fighting since sundown – he didn't have time to check his watch, but it had to be have been at least three hours since then.

His moves, so elegant moments ago, bled into sluggish jerks of motion, as though caught in treacle and too tired to try and work his way free. It was going to catch up to him soon enough.

As seemed to be the usual in this fight, it was the snow that brought him down. Bruce had taught him years ago the trick to keeping your balance on a surface that did its very best to slide out from under you but this fight had been going on for _hours_ and in that time the soft powdery snow had been pressed down into glass ice that was all but invisible in the darkness. Dick landed smoothly from vaulting over a man who had been trying to charge him, then instantly flailed as the ground beneath his feet didn't hold him.

Another attacker was there in an instant – a woman this time which was slightly unusual, Dick noticed distantly – smacking a fist into his cheekbone with such force that it sent him reeling. Like some sort of vicious tag team, there was another man on him so quickly that he didn't have any chance to recover his bearings before he was being completely whaled on, eskrima sticks tumbling away into the darkness as he tried in vain to protect himself.

A heavy blow to his lower back from some unseen enemy sent him to his knees which he realised instantly was a huge mistake as a knee came out of nowhere to crack against the side of his face. He hit the ground and stayed there, too stunned to do anything more than curl himself around his ribs and try to worm away from the kicks coming in from every direction.

Of coursethat was when Batman had to show up. Of fucking course. Dick, surrounded and battered as he was, didn't see or hear him approaching, so when the smoke bomb went off he was a surprised as everyone else, but perhaps less concerned. He knew the colour of that smoke intimately – he had helped Batman make the damn things.

Like some sort of avenging angel, Batman leapt from the skies to land right beside Dick, sending each foot into a thug's face as he did so. One dropped immediately while the other went stumbling back, clutching at a broken nose with a cry.

Cold and aching, Dick decided that he'd rather just lie back and watch the show than try to get himself upright to lend a hand – it _was_ Batman's turn after all and besides, he was fairly certain that he had at least two broken ribs to say nothing of the fact that some asshole had stamped on his wrist hard enough that he was struggling to make a fist, let alone throw a punch. Decision made, Dick let himself enjoy watching his mentor thrash the unsuspecting goons.

It wasn't until every last one of them had hit the floor and the smoke was dissipating into nothingness that Bruce turned to look at him.

"Are you alright?" There wasn't the slightest concern in his voice, but Dick knew it was there. Bruce had always been good at hiding the truth.

"Sure," he said brightly, trying to surreptitiously spit out blood pooling in his mouth so that he could speak clearly. He covered it by struggling to get himself upright. "Where the hell have you been?"

It wasn't said accusingly, despite the harshness of his words and yet Bruce still flinched a little as though it was a reprimand. "I was held up. From what you said, I didn't think it would be this bad."

There was enough of an apology there that Dick immediately let go of whatever bitterness was trapped in his chest. "When I called you, it wasn't. I wasn't expecting there to be so many of them – Clayface and Scarecrow have never been one for mass followings."

"Maybe it's a new tactic. Tell me what you know."

Dick sucked in a painful breath and held it for a moment, picking out the important facts and rearranging them into some semblance of order. "Three days ago Clayface was able to infiltrate the STAR lab facility on the edge of Blüdhaven by taking on the appearance of one of their technicians. The technician himself is currently in Gotham General – he's been heavily dosed with Scarecrow's fear toxin, which was the first indication we had that they were working with each other. It would appear that Clayface was able to steal some kind of wide range EMP that the lab had in development."

"Do we know why either of them would be interested in something like that? It's not their usual MO."

"With what STAR labs gave me, no. But I did some snooping of my own and found out something else." Bruce's face hadn't changed at all but Dick had the distinct impression he was smiling – as much as he'd hated it when Dick was an annoying little brat who kept hacking into the batcomputer, Bruce had learned to appreciate Dick's tendency to completely ignore electronic firewalls when he wanted to know something. "The EMP isn't exactly actually an EMP at all. It _does_ blow out the electricity but not before it sends a massive surge of power through the system, and I'm talking gigawatts here."

"That could easily take out the power across Gotham – probably most of the state too."

"And it would completely fry anyone even standing near an electronic appliance," Dick agreed grimly. "That's not even the worst of it. From piecing together other recent crimes, I've been able to build up a picture of what Scarecrow is trying to do. From the things that have been stolen recently, I think he's managed to build what is essentially a giant nebuliser – something big enough to vaporize huge amounts of his toxin and if I'm right then the last thing he needed was a power source. I was hoping it would take him longer to get one."

Batman was glaring into the shadows, rigid with stress. "You should have brought this to me sooner," he reprimanded after a moment, and Dick was abruptly reminded just why he'd decided to go solo.

But he was too tired for a fight right now, and they had work to do. "Sure," he said simply, not meeting his eyes. "Shall we?"

Bruce stared at him for a long moment, weighing him up in a way that would have been insulting if Dick could muster the energy for the emotion. "Are you alright to fight? You look dead on your feet."

Tired and frozen, Dick wasn't looking for a pointless argument, but that wasn't something he was just about to let stand. He had a reputation to maintain, broken ribs be damned. "Is that even a serious question? I'm in better shape than you, old man."

It was painfully clear that his humour fell flat from the way Bruce's expression didn't even flicker, but Dick couldn't let himself admit how much he was hurting. If he did, he wasn't sure he'd actually be able to keep going and right now they didn't have a choice. He couldn't let Batman face Crane and Karlo alone.

Still clearly unconvinced, Batman sighed slowly. "Alright then. Which way?"

Dick pointed. "There's a warehouse over there that was giving out strange energy reading when I first arrived. I lost track of them in the fight but it's a good place to start."

Batman just nodded and shot off his grapple, sending himself hurtling into the air as though it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn't even look back to see if Nightwing was following. With a soft curse and a wince, Dick shot his own grapple – with his less dominant left hand thanks to the aching, possibly-broken mess that was his right wrist – to the top of the same building and let himself be tugged into the sky, pretending that it didn't hurt like hell to put so much strain on his ribs.

Capeless, he was forced to run across the rooftops while Bruce glided easily above him but it was a fair trade off. His acrobatic fighting style didn't sit well with trailing material and after endlessly getting tangled up in his cape mid-backflip, he'd ditched the thing all together in favour of his more streamlined outfit. It _did_ make landing hell on his knees though.

A few minutes later he slowed to a stop, hesitating on the lip of one of the factory rooves as he listened. Before him lay a smaller, silent building, presumably another branch of the one he was standing on, and behind that rose the looming, formless mass of a warehouse that was almost invisible against the night sky but for the faint light shining through a busted window. If he hadn't spent the last few hours in almost total darkness, Dick doubted he would have seen it.

"Straight ahead. There's light coming from one of the buildings," he muttered.

" _I see it. Approach cautiously. I want to know what we're dealing with before we make contact."_ Bruce's voice was tinny over his communicator, but static free and clear.

Dick sucked in a shallow breath and took a step forwards into the empty space, relishing in the momentary weightless feeling he was so familiar with before gravity snatched at him and he fell. With perfectly timing, his grapple caught his weight seconds before he plummeted into the frozen ground but the sharp slowing of his motion jolted his ribs so badly he almost let go of the damn thing, his knees half collapsing on the impact to send him staggering into a wall. This was bad.

He half considered saying something, even if it was only to warn Bruce that he wasn't quite as fighting fit as he'd tried to make out but he stopped himself. Batman was good at reading people – he already knew what kind of shape Nightwing was in and yet he'd let him come along anyway. It was as close to a request for help as Bruce ever got.

"Remind me to add a thermal layer to my uniform, alright?" He said instead, because it would be even more telling if he stayed silent.

" _Focus,"_ was the abrupt reply, but there wasn't any weight in it. Bruce knew how Dick worked.

It was a simple matter for Dick to slide from shadow to shadow, curling one arm around his ribcage to protect it from being jostled any further. He knew that he'd be fighting again soon, and he would be able to let his pain hold him back no matter what. How he was going to manage with a broken-not-broken wrist, he had no idea.

He stopped just shy of the light pooling through the broken window, trying to angle himself to see what was beyond. It was hopeless; the light was too bright against the darkness to make anything out and even if it hadn't been, the angle was all wrong no matter how he twisted. He'd need to get higher, and there wasn't anything convenient nearby.

"I can't see anything," he murmured almost silently. He listened hard, straining against the quiet of the night air to hear anything. A whisper of sound brushed past him, indecipherable. "I can hear voices, but I can't tell what they're saying."

" _Get to the roof. I've taken down two guards up here but there may be more. Keep your eyes open."_

"Sure thing," Dick said because he knew he was expected to say something but didn't have the breath for anything more complex. When this came down to a fight – and it always came down to a fight when Batman in involved, let's face it – he knew he was going to be in serious trouble. Nothing was working the way it was supposed to.

His grapple caught easily on an unseen ledge above him, and he had half a second to hold his breath before he was airborne once more, his chest screaming so loudly he had to bite his lip to stop a cry of pain escaping him. Batman taught him better than this, damn it.

When he landed on the roof he couldn't immediately see anyone, but the hairs on the back of his neck prickled uneasily. It was a sensation he'd learned to trust over the years – never underestimate a person's subconscious awareness of danger. Alert, he forced his knees to bend into a crouch and valiantly ignored the way it made every part of his body ache in silent pain.

He heard the man approaching before he saw him, footsteps heavy in the silence of the night, and it was a simple matter of catching him off-guard and dropping him with a well-placed blow to the temple – his dominant hand might be twisted and useless, but thanks to Bruce's training he was all but ambidextrous when it came to throwing punches. What he hadn't accounted for was the second guard trailing on the tails of the first, the noise of his movements masked by his companion.

Dick had just enough time to knock the man's gun away before fists started flying out of nowhere and forced him back. Aware that he didn't have the strength to block anything significant, he resorted to dodging what he could despite the way it felt like his ribs had turned inwards like shards of glass against his lungs. It was endlessly frustrating to be able to see the holes the man was leaving in his guard but be unable to do anything about them, too weak to move with the necessary speed and precision – he was really messed up.

In the end, Batman had to save him. He'd been backing up to try and earn himself some room to work with but all he ended up doing was cornering himself on the rooftop, nowhere else to retreat to without returning to ground level. It was half a relief, half a curse when the shadow that was Batman swooped out of fucking nowhere to crash into the man, sending him sprawling then taking him out of the game for good with a sharp kick to the face before he'd recovered enough to rise.

"That was careless," Batman observed easily, not even having the decency to be breathing heavily.

Nightwing on the other hand could barely draw enough air to stay conscious. "I know," he acknowledged. There was no point in trying to defend himself – he'd learned that from experience.

This was normally the part of the conversation when Bruce would point out all the mistakes he'd made and then condemn him for each and every one but for once, he didn't say anything. He stared at Nightwing piercingly, eyes sharp under the cowl.

"What?" Dick demanded when his patience ran thin, a self-awareness clawing at the back of his neck.

"If you're not up for this, you need to tell me. Now." Batman said after a few minutes and for the first time in a long time, it didn't sound like a judgement. It sounded… sympathetic.

Nightwing wanted to huff in annoyance because it was the sort of thing he normally did when Batman was telling him not to do something, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Everything hurt too much for that by far. Instead he looked away, eyes skimming across the lights of the city off in the distance, refusing to answer.

Bruce let the silence stretch for a full minute before nodding. "Alright then."

He turned and strode away before Dick had a chance to say anything else, apparently having spent his sympathy quota for the day. Dick didn't mind – cold, uncaring Batman was more familiar to him than concerned Bruce ever had been and he'd always been able to draw strength from that inexhaustible supply of calm. If he needed anything right now, it was strength.

"So how are we doing this?" He asked as he followed in his mentor's wake, finally able to breathe again without doubling over in pain. It went unquestioned that even though this was technically his investigation, he'd defer to Batman now he was on scene.

"Scans indicated that there are seven people in the main hall of this warehouse. From the readings, I've identified one of them as Basil Karlo but without visual confirmation we have no way of knowing if Crane is still here. To the west end of the building there's an office that's closed off from the main hall," he said, pointing in the general direction as though Nightwing couldn't work out where west was. "It would appear to be empty."

"Appear to be?"

"I can't say for sure. The scanner reads the room as empty but there's something not right about the readings."

Nightwing frowned. "There's not a lot that can jam your scanners, and nothing Crane or Karlo stole recently would be able to do it. Another player on the board?"

"Impossible to say until we get down there."

Dick hummed, then sucked in as deep a breath as he dared. It was go-time, and he needed to be prepared to compartmentalise a whole lot of pain if he was going to get through this without needing yet another embarrassing save from Batman. He looked at Bruce, reminded himself of the thousand reasons he'd put on the suit that evening, and nodded.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Next to the western wall, there's a vent that should lead you to the office. I only want you to observe Nightwing," he ordered sternly, "Do not engage unless absolutely necessary. No matter what happens, you do not attack. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Christ, I understand. What about you? Seven against one isn't exactly an even fight, especially when one of them is Clayface. You need someone watching your back."

"I'll be fine."

Dick gritted his teeth, biting back on the anger that wanted to make an appearance. "Batman, you don't have to do everything on your own. Let me help."

"You _are._ I need you to find out what's in that office. If it's empty, then move through to the main hall and back me up."

This was the kind of thing that had made Dick break with Bruce to begin with. Logically, he knew that he was just trying to protect him in the only way he could but coming from Batman it sounded more like he wasn't being trusted to do what he'd been trained to do. Even knowing the truth, it was hard not to bristle at being banished from Bruce's side.

"You can't take Clayface on your own. Not when he's got backup and the ground advantage."

As it always did, Dick's stubbornness got Bruce's back up. " _Nightwing,"_ he ground out, obviously angry.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going," Dick said, waving him off. He didn't want to let it go but they were wasting time they sorely needed and it wasn't like Batman was ever going to actually let him win an argument. Over ten years of working together and Dick had never once been allowed the last word on anything.

Angry in more ways than he cared to acknowledge, Dick stalked in the direction of the vent and popped off the cover. He didn't even look back to see what Batman was doing before he dropped himself into the darkness, taking as much care as his battered body could manage to not make any noise.

If only he and Bruce could _talk._ Not their usual communication of grunts and minute facial expressions, but actual words that said what they were feeling. Dick knew that he loved Bruce – the man was as close to a father as anyone could claim to be and he was sure in a way he couldn't explain that the emotion was reciprocated; their bond was absolute. Nothing was about to change that. But damn if he didn't hate the man too sometimes.

"In position," he breathed almost silently, belly-crawling closer to the grate on the wall to try to peer through it. It was risky – if he could see out then someone else could see _in,_ but barely anyone ever actually checked wall vents for costumed heroes.

The inside of the office wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. He'd thought that maybe it was housing the nebuliser which might account for Bruce's scanner being out of whack – and he was right on that count at least – but it came with the extra joy that was one Dr Jonathan Crane, complete with gas mask and threatening syringes strapped to each finger.

As a precaution, Dick slipped his rebreather out and put it in his mouth. When it came to Scarecrow it paid to be aware of just what you were breathing in. "I have eyes on Crane."

" _Do not engage,"_ Batman ordered instantly, as though he hadn't already made that perfectly clear.

From the distant reaches of the warehouse, Dick heard the first sounds of fighting, along with raised shouts of alarm – Batman had appeared. Oblivious to the distraction, Crane continued his work in silence. It was obvious at a glance that he was building up to something big; every inch of his body spoke of intense concentration and the machine he was fiddling with was whirring as though it was warming up. Lights flickered across various monitors, reds switching to greens with alarming speed.

"We don't have time," he told Batman calmly. "He's almost ready to start this thing and we can't let that happen."

" _I need another three minutes,"_ Batman insisted, and for the first time that night, Dick heard the strain of exertion in his voice. Clayface always put up one hell of a fight.

"We don't _have_ three minutes," Dick insisted, then flicked his earpiece off. He was right and he knew it – he had no interest in listening to Bruce chew him out over something he didn't have a choice over.

Twisting around in the vent so that he could kick the grill out was something of a challenge, but Dick was nothing if not determined. So what if it felt like his lungs had been crushed? He had things to do.

He had a full second of watching Crane flinch in surprise when he burst into the room, though the satisfaction that provided lasted only long enough for him to notice the three henchmen crowded in the corner of the room, out of the cone of vision provided by the vent. As soon as he appeared they were on their feet advancing, one of them tapping a baseball bat menacingly against the floor as he did so.

"End him," Crane ordered coldly, turning back to his computers with little urgency. It was almost offensive.

Dick sidestepped the first swing of the baseball bat and backed off rapidly, throwing a wing-ding into the face of the furthest man from him. He dropped with a satisfying thud, clutching at his nose. The man with the bat made a lunge towards him that drove Dick back towards the vent opening, putting his weight on his back foot and throwing him off balance. In his momentary flounder, the third goon dove towards him.

They both went crashing to the ground, taking a table down with them and sending paper and other detritus skittering away across the floor. The rebreather was knocked from Dick's mouth, tearing a gash through his lip as it went. Too stubborn to be taken down by a mere _henchman_ of all people, Dick twisted with the fall to put himself on top of his attacker and made sure to slam him face first into the concrete floor to knock him out cold. His ribs tugged painfully, and the momentary pause in pain was enough for the remaining man to take a swing at him.

The bat glanced off his shoulder blade in a blow that would have been harmless if he was in better shape; as it was, the pain was enough to keep him on the ground when he should have been rising to end Crane, and the second blow – to his temple this time – nearly knocked him out. He blinked stars out of his eyes.

"Very good," Crane said softly, the sound of his footsteps approaching. Dick had the vague impression of the man standing over him but he still couldn't _see_ and everything hurt too much and he couldn't _move_ -

There was a sharp, fierce pain under his jaw for a few heartbeats before it withdrew – a needle. It took Dick a muddled, confused second for him to understand what that meant.

' _Bruce is going to kill me,'_ he thought instantly. It was rapidly followed by a more sombre, _'If I survive.'_

A last ditch burst of energy flooded him, be it a result of his training or simply some primal desire to live, to _fight,_ and it was just enough to shake the blackness out of his eyes at last. The man with the baseball bat was crouching down beside him, reaching for his throat as though to throttle him, while Crane stood over them both, idly toying with the syringes on his gloves. Dick pretended not to see the smear of his blood on the needles.

"No," Crane told the man with detached coldness. "He's already dead. Let the Batman see what happens when he drags his friends into this game of ours."

Everything in the room was twisting sickeningly, but Dick wasn't a quitter. When his whole body was screaming at him to pass out, to let go, he doubled his efforts to fight against the darkness. Distantly, he heard the machine Crane had been fiddling with beeping rapidly, high and staccato against the rushing in his ears and in that moment he knew that he'd failed. Crane was going to win this fight.

He tried to speak, to tell the world 'no, you can't do this,' but the words caught in his throat and he choked on them, his lungs freezing up with a suddenness that would have been alarming if he'd been more lucid. Above him, Scarecrow chuckled.

"We need to get out of here boss," the other man was saying, glancing nervously from the door to the machine and back again. Oh, yeah; Batman was coming.

That was a slight comfort to Dick, enough so that when Crane reached out and casually jabbed his syringes into his own man's neck, he barely even flinched. The man crumpled almost instantly, scrabbling at his throat as though it would be enough to save him – if the poisoned agony building in Dick's blood was any indication, it wouldn't be.

"Fear comes for all men," Crane said calmly. Dick couldn't tell if he was speaking quietly or if Dick's hearing was just too messed up to properly parse the sound, but either way he barely discerned the words.

He struggled momentarily, flopping his arms helplessly on the ground. "You-" he tried, then ran out of air. Iron locked itself around his throat and strangled any hope he had of finishing his sentence. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to say. The drug was starting to take root, turning the shadows in the corner of his vision into threats he couldn't quite see but that set his heart pounding in his chest.

"Save your breath," Crane ordered, crouching down beside him in a way that was somehow more threatening than towering over him had been. "I need you alive yet. I want Batman to see you die."

Dick wanted to spit at him. He'd been taught better, of course, by his parents and later by Bruce, but in that agonised moment, Dick hated him so much he'd happily have ended him with his bare hands. But he couldn't; he couldn't do _anything,_ with all his muscles revolting against his control and his lungs trying to escape out of his throat. He coughed sharply and felt liquid dribble down his chin. Blood or spittle? It probably didn't matter.

Damn, how inglorious. Dick would be embarrassed if he had the energy to maintain anything but the most basic of emotions. Fear. Anger. Pain.

Hope was in there somewhere too, at least – he was going to die, sure, but Batman was coming for him. It wouldn't save him, but it might at least mean that he wasn't going to die all alone with Crane looming over him like a demon.

The shadows at the edge of Dick's narrowing vision edged closer and he thought he caught a glimpse of claws reaching for his neck. He tried to twist away, couldn't, and gagged at the pain his movement produced. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer and what little was left of his vision was starting to turn white as his breathing faltered altogether. Somewhere he could hear the distinct sounds of something solid impacting flesh and Jason's voice screaming in pain, barely covering the maniacal laughter that accompanied it.

' _Not real,'_ he tried to tell himself firmly, but it didn't help. It _was_ real after all, it just wasn't current.

His vision was gone entirely now, which did nothing to stop him from panicking. If he couldn't see or hear then he had no way of defending himself if the Joker came after him next. No, wait, that wasn't right. The Joker wasn't here. He was in Arkham after the bombings last week. Last month? Fuck, Dick couldn't have said what _year_ it was and it didn't matter because _he couldn't see-_

His heart skipped a beat, faltered, carried on racing. Dick couldn't tell if he was still breathing or not. He just wanted it all to stop – the pain, the fear, the uncertainty. There was just so much _pain-_

Terrified, Dick passed out.

 **...**

Batman had known in his heart of hearts that he should have sent Nightwing home. It was so glaringly obvious that he was injured and even if he wouldn't admit it, he was in no shape to be out there fighting. Even with Batman telling him to hang back, to work reconnaissance instead of front line, Bruce _knew_ he'd get into trouble.

But even Batman had his limits and trying to take on Clayface, Scarecrow and all their combined men without any back up just might be enough of a distraction that people could get hurt. He couldn't be watching all of them and worrying about some mysterious machine that Scarecrow may or may not be building all at the same time and certainly not with a time limit. Willing to admit it or not, he needed the help.

That didn't change the fact that when he finally caught up to Nightwing, he instantly knew that he'd made a terrible mistake.

He burst into the office still panting from fighting off Clayface – who'd retreated through a sewer grate to lick his wounds – to find the nebuliser almost ready to discharge, a fleeing Scarecrow and a barely conscious Nightwing. He was contorted on the floor in obvious pain, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth that was open in a silent scream, as though he was in agony so immense that he couldn't convey its magnitude with audible sound. In less than a heartbeat, Batman knew that image would never truly leave him.

He prioritised quickly. Crane could run for all he cared; he could catch up to him later – he most certainly _would_ be catching up to him later after whatever he'd done to Nightwing – and he wasn't in immediate need of attention. Choosing between Nightwing and the nebuliser was more tricky. Every part of his soul that was Bruce Wayne was crying out to help his son, to save him from whatever it was that was causing him such pain and to take him away from an awful place such as this. But Batman couldn't be swayed by sentiment. No matter what else happened, if he didn't stop the nebuliser then a lot of people were going to die, not least the pair of them. He couldn't let that happen.

His heart in his throat, Batman ignored Nightwing's prone form and rushed to the machine, his cowl scanning it with every bit of processing power it had. He brought his years of mental discipline to bear, forcing Nightwing from his head so that he could concentrate on what he was doing without his hands shaking. It wasn't a complicated system, thank God, but it was delicate – to press the wrong button or overload the wrong drive would be to set it off and make this whole endeavour pointless.

He didn't press the wrong button.

The nebuliser rattled through its power down with a series of whirs and clanks, but Batman didn't hear any of that. As soon as the lights had switched to red, he had been spinning around and racing to Dick's side, reaching him just as his whole body went totally limp and his breathing stopped altogether. Batman's heart stuttered in terror.

"No," he hissed out, both a command and a plea. He fumbled with one of his gauntlets for an agonisingly long time before he released the catch and cast the thing on the floor, searching for a pulse in Dick's neck with desperation. For a moment there was nothing and then- Yes! There was a faint heartbeat still ticking over.

It was enough. Bruce knew a hundred different versions of CPR for all kinds of situations and circumstances, so he knew just how to position Dick's head to ensure maximum oxygen transfer without causing further damage to his head and ribs – he'd been through more than enough already. It would have felt like nothing more than going through the motions if it weren't for the way Bruce's heart was faltering unevenly in his chest, his hands shaking just the slightest bit as primal, unstoppable fear gripped at his shoulders.

Fear was not a usual sensation for him. He might have considered that maybe he'd been exposed to fear toxin himself, but he knew that it simply wasn't the case. It wasn't any drug making him feel this way. Seeing Nightwing, or Robin, or Batgirl, or _anyone_ in his small, dysfunctional family hurt was something he had never been able to stand – any time it happened he was reduced to questioning whether he'd made the right decision in dragging them into this dark world of his and usually deciding that he'd been a fool beyond all imaginings.

It wasn't the time for such reminiscences, he reminded himself sharply. He needed to concentrate.

The seconds ticked by and Dick still wasn't breathing, his pulse starting to fail under Batman's fingertips. Anyone else would give up, he knew; it was probably the right thing to do. But he just _couldn't_. He'd taught his Robins many things to help them on the path they had to walk but one thing he'd never tried to impart to them was how to give up – he wanted to believe that was because they shouldn't ever decide that giving up was an option but it wasn't true. He hadn't taught them because _he_ hadn't known how.

"Come on, Nightwing," he murmured in between breaths, trying to ignore the taste of blood on his lips. Not using real names in the suit was one of his most absolute laws, but he was loathe to have to do it now – if Nightwing was about to die then Bruce didn't want to let the last thing he heard be a code name of all things. "Breathe, damn you."

Nightwing had never been one to disobey an order from Batman and perhaps that mentality had sunk into his subconscious too, because even though he was passed out cold and couldn't possibly have heard him, Dick chose that moment to suck in a sharp breath. It was almost instantly followed by a choke and then a soft cry of pain but that was irrelevant – Dick was _breathing._ It was the best thing Bruce had ever heard.

"I've got to get you out of here," he said, more to himself than anyone. Breathing he may be, but Dick wasn't about to be rising back to consciousness any time soon.

Picking Nightwing up was a lot harder than it had been when he was Robin and not yet five feet tall, muscled but still small for his age. Bruce forced himself not to compare the man in his arms with the boy he had been – if for one second he let himself acknowledge that it wasn't Nightwing he carried but _Dick,_ then it would all be over. To acknowledge the truth would destroy what little self-control he was clinging to.

"You need to be doing better than this Nightwing," he said, because lecturing had always come more easily to him than endearments and he needed to say something to fill in the silence that Nightwing had left behind. "You've dealt with fear toxin before, you just have to work through it. Stay calm. Centre yourself. It will wear off eventually and you'll be fine."

He stumbled on his way from the warehouse, Nightwing gasping in pain at the jolting even in unconsciousness. The visible skin on his cheeks and chin had turned sallow and grey, shimmering with sweat that had to be due to more than just his previous exertion. Batman was losing him and he knew it.

"You just need to keep going," he said. "I've called the Batwing to pick us up and then we'll get you sorted out. You need to work harder."

In a stroke of luck that Batman was almost entirely unfamiliar with, the Batwing was hovering over them as soon as they made it outside. Loading Nightwing into it without hurting him was beyond difficult but after everything else that had happened that night, Batman was glad it was a problem he had to face.

"You'll be okay," he murmured as he settled himself into the seat in front of Nightwing's still form, clicking on the controls. "You've just got to keep fighting. I don't know what Crane's done to you but I swear, I will fix it. You've just got to keep fighting."

 **..**

By the time they'd made it back to the cave, Dick's condition had deteriorated; considering the condition he'd been in when they started the journey, it was almost impressive. His temperature had climbed steadily, monitored by the Batwing's internal sensors, and his breathing had been growing more and more laboured with a distinctive rattle that could only indicate fluid build-up in his lungs. His suit readings had dropped so low that they'd almost given up entirely.

Abandoning any pretence of even slightly having his shit together, Batman hauled Nightwing out of the plane with as much gentleness as he could manage without sacrificing precious time and raced to the infirmary, radioing Alfred on the way to tell him about their arrival. His first priority had to be to find out what the hell Scarecrow had pumped into his system – there was nothing to be done if he couldn't stop the poison soon.

Fortunately, years as Batman had taught Bruce more than just basic first aid and it was no effort at all to draw a blood sample and all but throw it into the required slot for the computer to run an analysis. He set the machine to test for compounds resembling the most recent batch of fear toxin and then a secondary scan to compare the current sample with Dick's usual bloodwork. It paid to have copies of all their DNA samples on hand.

Alfred appeared in the door, face pale as he took in the scene before him. "Master Dick?"

"He was hit with Scarecrow's fear toxin. After having a run in with every thug in Gotham, apparently. Help me get this off," Bruce said, indicating Dick's uniform. Even through the layered Kevlar he could feel the heat coming off his skin – to think that such a short time before, Dick had been shivering in the midwinter cold.

He shook the thought away, forcing himself to concentrate. Between them, they were able to get Dick's upper half undressed, exposing the black and blue mess that was his chest. Bruce hissed through his teeth at the bruising; he'd known that Dick was injured, of course, but this was far worse than he was expecting. He must have been in agony.

The thought was enough to break through the careful blank shell Bruce had placed around himself and for a moment, everything in his chest went numb. He'd done this. He should have sent Dick home. "What have I done?" He asked himself, the words barely a breath.

Ever aware of what was going on in his head, Alfred stared at him hard. "You cannot blame yourself for every misfortune that Master Dick takes upon himself," he said sternly. "I took the liberty of monitoring your conversation while you were gone. You did everything you could to keep him out of danger."

Bruce should have been annoyed by the intense invasion of privacy but he just didn't have the brain space to add anything else to his list of problems. Alfred always had been a nosy bastard and it had never once caused an issue. "We need to get his fever down," he said in lieu of coming up with a proper response. "If it gets much higher he'll be running a risk of brain damage."

He left Alfred to deal with assembling every ice pack he could find, and focused instead on identifying the worst of Nightwing's hurts with a handheld scanner for detecting damaged tissue. It was a matter of moments to find the broken ribs, the fractured wrist and the vast array of lacerations where blows had been heavy enough to break the skin.

Bruce abandoned his gauntlets – he needed the dexterity they denied him – but left his cowl on. He was sure that he must look a sight in full costume fussing over a topless, unconscious Dick, but the scanners in his visor meant that he could use both hands to repair the damage whilst maintaining his monitoring systems.

First on the agenda was the wrist. Several bones were cracked or chipped and one of the bones in his hand had snapped clean in two, but thankfully none of them were severely displaced enough that Bruce couldn't fix them himself. There was no point in putting the joint in a full cast right then, when there were far more important things to worry about, so he settled for a lightweight brace that should hold everything together provided Nightwing didn't try to use his hand – an empty hope, really, knowing Dick.

The ribs were more difficult. They needed binding so that they wouldn't shift and threaten the soft tissue of his lungs but with Dick's temperature soaring through the roof, it was something of a risk to smother him in bandages. Unconscious as he was, he wasn't likely to be moving any time soon, Bruce reasoned. It should be safe to just leave them for now.

With the most pressing problems as solved as he could make them, he turned his attention to the computer. The blood scans were still running, much to his annoyance, but they had at least managed to isolate the irregularity in Dick's blood compared with his usual sample. Whatever it was didn't seem to be related to previous known variants of Scarecrow's toxin but without more concrete data, there was nothing to be done.

"His temperature is still rising Master Bruce," Alfred said quietly, breaking his mind of out the downward spiral he had fallen into.

"He needs an antidote to whatever is in his system. It's not like the other toxins – it doesn't look as though it's just going to fade away on its own but without the data…" Bruce had never felt so helpless.

Alfred's face was bleak. "There is nothing to be done now," he said with as much conviction as he could muster. "You should rest."

Bruce wanted to argue. He knew that it was expected of him and in truth the thought of leaving Dick's side for even a moment was agonising, but he simply didn't have the energy to stand his ground. His cape was weighing on his shoulders in a way he hadn't felt in years and he was aware that his overuse of the cowl's digital displays had set off the beginnings of a migraine – as if he didn't have enough to worry about.

"Yes," he said simply. "You'll stay with him?"

"Of course. Do you have any injuries that need attending to?"

He had to really think for a minute, his body was so numb. "No, I don't think so. I'll get cleaned up and come back, alright?"

"Very good Master Bruce."

 **..**

Dick's condition, if anything, seemed to be getting worse. The computer had at least identified the molecular structure of the toxin in his bloodstream but, as an unknown compound, it was taking far longer than Bruce might have liked for it to come up with a plausible treatment strategy. The chemical seemed to be working on similar biological systems to the usual fear toxin, but somehow it seemed to be targeting a different pathway – which also explained the unusual symptoms Dick was displaying.

His temperature had remained firmly on the border between 'potentially brain damaging' and 'almost certainly lethal,' despite their best efforts. His heart rate and breathing had also taken quite a hit, alternating between hyperactivity and near-immobility without any apparent pattern or cause. Then, of course, there was the fear.

Bruce had initially assumed that with Dick as deeply unconscious as he was, he might just be lucky enough to escape the more psychological impacts of Scarecrow's toxin, but it was not to be. He'd started having 'nightmares' shortly before dawn and even though the sun was now high in the sky, there seemed to be no sign of them easing any time soon – watching Dick shift and moan in terror had to be one of the worst experiences of Bruce's life.

He'd sat himself beside his son and gripped his uninjured hand for dear life, muttering useless placations when Dick started to become unsettled, growing more and more disheartened when his presence seemed to achieve nothing. For all that though, it wasn't until Dick started muttering to himself in Romani that Bruce felt something in his chest break.

Dick only ever spoke Romani when he was dreaming of his parents – it made sense, of course, as he'd all but abandoned the language when he'd come to live in the manor. Bruce had always been curious about what Dick was saying in such dreams, but there had always been an unspoken desire on Dick's part that this area of his life remain his own and Bruce wasn't going to encroach on that. As a result, he'd never learned the language.

He almost regretted it now, hearing Dick cry out to unseen spectres with such terror in his voice that it shook the very foundations of Bruce's soul.

"No change?" Alfred asked quietly from the doorway. He'd had to leave them so that he could communicate Bruce's absence from Wayne Industries for the day in a way that was both plausible and sufficiently serious that he wouldn't have anyone calling him up and demanding he 'get over it.' Bruce didn't even want to know what story he'd gone with.

Alfred had also been the one to forcefully usher Tim to school – by silent agreement, neither of them had told him about his elder brother's condition until the morning as he'd already been asleep when they'd returned. As soon as he'd heard, he'd come racing down and they could both see the intense effect Dick's appearance had had on him; after that they were very keen to keep him at a distance, at least for now.

"No. His temperature isn't climbing any more though."

"That's good."

The conversation trailed off there, Bruce too worn out and emotionally drained to try and maintain it. Everything in his body hurt with a quiet sort of pain and instead of trying to deal with it, his brain had taken control away from him and just flicked over onto autopilot. Doing anything more ambitious than sitting there gripping Dick's hand would be beyond him.

Dick twitched, then jolted, gasping in pain as he did so before he settled back with a muttered curse. There was nothing Bruce could do but grip his hand tighter, murmuring whatever comforting words first came to mind. He'd never been good when any of his boys were ill – sitting by sickbeds was something he'd never been taught how to deal with and yet he'd had to do it all too often.

"He will recover, Master Bruce," Alfred intoned solemnly. "He would not want you to distress yourself so."

There was nothing Bruce could say to that that Alfred would want to hear. He bit his tongue and kept the peace.

Two hours later, when Dick had fallen into feverish mutterings and cries, the computer loudly chimed with success. Bruce was in front of it before the alert had even finished its alarm tone, fingers flying over the keys as he took in the data the experiments had churned out – it was good news. Finally, some good luck they could actually use.

Even better, the compounds he needed were all on hand in the infirmary, though he had to bastardise a couple of medical packs to obtain the right chemicals. They would be simple enough to replace and Dick's need was far greater than anything else that might come up in the near future so Bruce didn't worry.

Alfred had taken Bruce's abandoned place at the computer, running treatment simulations and expected outcomes, calling out the required doses of each drug periodically. It was a patch job, no doubt, but it was all they had.

"Come on Dick," Bruce murmured as he injected the first formulation into the IV. "You've just got to keep fighting."

 **..**

With everything that he'd been through, it didn't come as much of a surprise to anyone that Dick took his sweet time in waking up. After the first injection of their treatment strategy, his condition evened out somewhat, his vitals very gradually falling back into their usual patterns and staying there. Most noticeably, his fever had all but cleared and his sleep had at last turned peaceful.

That being said, he still slept through the next two days without showing the slightest signs of waking – if he didn't stir soon, they'd have something to worry about. Between them, Alfred, Bruce and Tim had worked out a system that allowed for them all to go about their usual duties (Batman appeared each night, though not from dusk to dawn as he sometimes did and Tim attended his classes with minimal complaining) while continually maintaining a presence at Dick's bedside, just in case he decided to grace them with his consciousness.

It was on the morning of the third day, just as Tim was preparing to head off for school and Bruce was returning from his nightly shift, that Dick jolted awake with a cry. Within a minute, all three of them had congregated at his side, all wearing identical expressions of relief despite Dick's obvious disorientation.

"You're safe," Bruce told him as soon as he was within earshot. "You're back in the cave."

"Wha-" he stopped, grimaced in pain and tried again. "What happened?"

"Scarecrow got you," Tim said, at the same moment as Bruce said, "You ignored instruction and got into a fight you couldn't win."

Alfred dispensed with subtlety, and stepped pointedly on Bruce's toes. Tim managed to ignore them both with consummate easy and gripped hold of Dick's hand to try and quell the way his heart was still stuttering on the monitor.

"You got hit with a variant of fear toxin that we'd not seen before and combined with all your other injuries… You almost died, Dick," he said very quietly, not meeting his brother's eyes.

Dick, still barely conscious and with absolutely zero fucking idea what was going on, instantly felt guilty. It wasn't a logical reaction – his job was dangerous, shit happened – but it was infinitely painful to see that sad, scared look on his brother's face and know that he was the one who had put it there.

"Hey kid," he said quietly, voice rasping, "I'm okay. Really. You know me."

He tried to wink but realised quickly that if he closed either of his eyes he'd have a hell of a job getting them open again, so he settled for squeezing Tim's hand with his feeble strength.

Alfred had always been the best person to navigate the difficult social situations of Bruce Wayne with tact and dignity, and so it was he who put his hand on Tim's shoulder and softly reminded him that they needed to leave to get him to school on time, before promptly 'nope-ing' his way out of the situation and disappearing back into the manner. Bruce watched them go like the traitors they were.

"I'm sorry." The voice was quiet, filled with a thousand emotions half buried under the rasp of three days without a drink.

Bruce blinked at him in surprise. "What are you sorry for?"

Dick was still staring at the door Alfred and Tim had disappeared through, but Bruce could see the way his eyes had grown tight, the smooth line of his brow crinkling under a frown. "You told me to stay back and I disobeyed you. I shouldn't have done that."

It was so obvious that he was expecting a lecture, even while he was in so much pain he couldn't move and he was so evidently exhausted. Bruce busied his hands pouring him a glass of water and helping him take a few sips so that he had the time to formulate a response that didn't involve him undergoing some sort of nervous breakdown.

"How do you feel?" He asked, when Dick had managed to down half the cup and there was slightly more colour in his cheeks. The gash on his lip glared a vicious red.

"I've had worse."

"You almost died, Dick."

"That's not saying all that much."

"Dick."

Dick sucked in a sharp breath that probably hurt to cut off whatever else he was going to say. Bruce wasn't about to give him a fight when he was so clearly digging for one. "Can't you just be pissed so we can get this over with?"

"Language. I'm not angry Dick."

"Sure you're not. It's not like I deliberately disobeyed you and almost got myself killed, probably let Scarecrow escape…"

"I returned Crane to Arkham last night. Our intervention broke his treaty with Clayface and when we stopped the nebuliser, we disrupted all of his plans. I think he wanted to be caught."

"Because that's not suspicious."

"Crane has always been the type of person to plan his crimes meticulously. He can't do that if he's on the run and the only way to achieve that is to already be in prison."

"Still not getting why you're not angry."

"Because…" Bruce had always been bad with words. He could give a hell of a speech, sure, but when it came to genuine communication with the people he cared about, he always seemed to fall short. His family knew this – they'd all had to put up with it for far longer than they deserved. "Because I have spent the last few days watching you suffer," he said eventually, his eyes downcast. "And in all honesty, I'm so relieved to see you awake that I can't find it in me to care about what came before."

When Bruce found the courage to meet Dick's eyes again, his expression was soft. "I'm sorry. That you had to go through that. It was stupid of me to underestimate Scarecrow."

"Your intervention probably saved Gotham," Bruce conceded after a moment of tense silence. "I only just got to the machine in time."

"I'm good for something then, at least."

Bruce nodded absentmindedly, his thoughts elsewhere. "I shouldn't have let you come with me. I know that you would have hated me for trying to send you away, especially when it was your case, but you almost died and it would have been my fault. I knew you were injured and I did nothing."

"I wouldn't have let you do anything. You know that."

"That doesn't make it okay."

Dick sighed, a soft whine escaping him as he did so. Everything was really starting to pound with pain. "Let's just write it off, okay? I'm sorry, you're sorry, no one's dead. Let's just… let it go."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Bruce let the corner of his mouth tug up, ever so slightly. "You make it sound so simple."

"Well, I'm on quite a lot of drugs right now, I think. Things are pretty simple when everything's purple and wavy."

"I'm… pretty sure that's not supposed to happen."

"Eh. I'm okay with it." Dick's voice was growing fainter, his consciousness wavering as his pain levels rose and his depleted energy stores ran down to their last flickers.

"Sleep Dick," Bruce murmured. "You'll feel better soon enough, I'm sure."

Dick didn't reply, apparently already asleep again if his slowing breathing was anything to go by. Bruce stayed where he was, head propped up on his hands as he gazed at his son's slack face, mind whirring away. He'd been telling the truth when he'd said he wasn't really angry – as Batman he held a certain amount of frustration that he had been so ignored, but he also understood that Dick really hadn't had a choice. Scarecrow was about to activate his machine and that would have almost certainly been game over. As Bruce… He was just happy to see Dick free of the terror that had been rocking through him throughout the ordeal.

He still couldn't quite forgive himself for not sending Dick home, but he was sure that Alfred, Robin and Dick would all take great pleasure in reminding him that no one was blaming him. It would be enough.

Finally, _finally,_ free of the worry and horror, Bruce reached out to hold his son's hand and let himself relax. It was over now. They'd be okay.

* * *

 _For Crane's appearance I went with his Arkham Knight model because he looks incredible in that game no arguments._

 _The end trails off a bit but this story was too long and I'd been writing it for ages. I just wanted it out._

 _In case you've not seen it, Ismahawk are a youtube channel that do a load of fan vids for DC and Marvel (amongst other things) and they're great. A while back they did 'Nightwing: The Series' which is completely brilliant. You can watch the whole thing in less than an hour and it's definitely worth the time. (Also Danny Shepherd who plays Dick is kinda hot as hell. It helps)._


End file.
